History
The property came to the family through Bruce Kelham, and Bob and Alex Phillips began growing fine winegrapes here in 1959. For most of the half century that followed they sold everything they grew, to the names that defined Oakville Cabernet: Araujo, Cakebread, Lail and Bond among them. In 2008 Bruce Phillips held back a small allocation and launched the VHR estate label with winemaker Francoise Peschon, who has made it since.
The Site
Over six hundred acres in the southwest corner of Oakville, off Oakville Grade Road, of which roughly seventy are planted. The northern fence line is shared with Beckstoffer Missouri Hopper; to the west the land climbs into the ravines below Promontory and Harlan Estate. That range is the point of the property: it crosses from valley-floor gravel to mountain stone inside one boundary.
Vines and Blocks
Three geological zones divide the planting. The foothill blocks on the western edge sit on shallow fractured volcanic rock and weathered sandstone and give the most structural fruit. The alluvial bench in the centre, on Bale loam and fine gravelly silt, is the core of the estate Cabernet. The eastern creek blocks run into deeper clay that traps cool air overnight, and carry the Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Within those zones the family works the planted acreage as more than a hundred separate sub-blocks, each matched to its own clone and rootstock.
The Wines
VHR Cabernet Sauvignon is a blend across the three zones rather than a selection from one: dark-fruited and firmly structured, in the classical Oakville register.